王維　和賈舍人早朝大明宮之作 AN EARLY AUDIENCE AT THE PALACE OF LIGHT
HARMONIZING SECRETARY JIA ZHI POEM
絳幘雞人送曉籌
尚衣方進翠云裘
九天閶闔開宮殿
萬國衣冠拜冕旒
日色才臨仙掌動
香煙欲傍袞龍浮
朝罷須裁五色詔
佩聲歸向鳳池頭
The red-capped Cock-Man has just announced morning;
The Keeper of the Robes brings Jade-Cloud Furs;
Heaven's nine doors reveal the palace and its courtyards;
And the coats of many countries bow to the Pearl Crown.
Sunshine has entered the giants' carven palms;
Incense wreathes the Dragon Robe:
The audience adjourns-and the five-coloured edict
Sets girdle-beads clinking toward the Lake of the Phoenix.

王維　奉和圣制從蓬萊向興慶閣道中留春雨中春望之作應制 LOOKING DOWN IN A SPRING-RAIN ON THE COURSE
FROM FAIRY-MOUNTAIN PALACE TO THE PAVILION OF
INCREASE HARMONIZING THE EMPEROR'S POEM
渭水自縈秦塞曲
黃山舊繞漢宮斜
鑾輿迥出千門柳
閣道回看上苑花
云里帝城雙鳳闕
雨中春樹萬人家
為乘陽氣行時令
不是宸游玩物華
Round a turn of the Qin Fortress winds the Wei River,
And Yellow Mountain foot-hills enclose the Court of China;
Past the South Gate willows comes the Car of Many Bells
On the upper Palace-Garden Road-a solid length of blossom;
A Forbidden City roof holds two phoenixes in cloud;
The foliage of spring shelters multitudes from rain;
And now, when the heavens are propitious for action,
Here is our Emperor ready-no wasteful wanderer.

王維　積雨輞川莊作 IN MY LODGE AT WANG CHUAN
AFTER A LONG RAIN
積雨空林煙火遲
蒸藜炊黍餉東 [“淄”去氵加草頭]
漠漠水田飛白鷺
陰陰夏木囀黃鸝
山中習靜觀朝槿
松下清齋折露葵
野老與人爭席罷
海鷗何事更相疑
The woods have stored the rain, and slow comes the smoke
As rice is cooked on faggots and carried to the fields;
Over the quiet marsh-land flies a white egret,
And mango-birds are singing in the full summer trees....
I have learned to watch in peace the mountain morningglories,
To eat split dewy sunflower-seeds under a bough of pine,
To yield the post of honour to any boor at all....
Why should I frighten sea gulls, even with a thought?

王維　酬郭給事 HARMONIZING A POEM BY PALACE-ATTENDANT GUO
洞門高閣靄馀輝
桃李陰陰柳絮飛
禁里疏鐘官舍晚
省中啼鳥吏人稀
晨搖玉佩趨金殿
夕奉天書拜瑣闈
強欲從君無那老
將因臥病解朝衣
High beyond the thick wall a tower shines with sunset
Where peach and plum are blooming and the willowcotton flies.
You have heard in your office the court-bell of twilight;
Birds find perches, officials head for home.
Your morning-jade will tinkle as you thread the golden palace;
You will bring the word of Heaven from the closing gates at night.
And I should serve there with you; but being full of years,
I have taken off official robes and am resting from my troubles.

杜甫　蜀相 THE TEMPLE OF THE PREMIER OF SHU
丞相祠堂何處尋
錦官城外柏森森
映階碧草自春色
隔葉黃鸝空好音
三顧頻煩天下計
兩朝開濟老臣心
出師未捷身先死
長使英雄淚滿襟
Where is the temple of the famous Premier? --
In a deep pine grove near the City of Silk,
With the green grass of spring colouring the steps,
And birds chirping happily under the leaves.
...The third summons weighted him with affairs of state
And to two generations he gave his true heart,
But before he could conquer, he was dead;
And heroes have wept on their coats ever since.

杜甫　客至 A HEARTY WELCOME TO VICE-PREFECT CUI
舍南舍北皆春水
但見群鷗日日來
花徑不曾緣客掃
蓬門今始為君開
盤飧市遠無兼味
樽酒家貧只舊醅
肯與鄰翁相對飲
隔籬呼取盡馀杯
North of me, south of me, spring is in flood,
Day after day I have seen only gulls....
My path is full of petals -- I have swept it for no others.
My thatch gate has been closed -- but opens now for you.
It's a long way to the market, I can offer you little --
Yet here in my cottage there is old wine for our cups.
Shall we summon my elderly neighbour to join us,
Call him through the fence, and pour the jar dry?

杜甫　野望 A VIEW OF THE WILDERNESS
西山白雪三城戍
南浦清江萬里橋
海內風塵諸弟隔
天涯涕淚一身遙
唯將遲暮供多病
未有涓埃答圣朝
跨馬出郊時極目
不堪人事日蕭條
Snow is white on the westward mountains and on three fortified towns,
And waters in this southern lake flash on a long bridge.
But wind and dust from sea to sea bar me from my brothers;
And I cannot help crying, I am so far away.
I have nothing to expect now but the ills of old age.
I am of less use to my country than a grain of dust.
I ride out to the edge of town. I watch on the horizon,
Day after day, the chaos of the world.

杜甫　聞官軍收河南河北 BOTH SIDES OF THE YELLOW RIVER
RECAPTURED BY THE IMPERIAL ARMY
劍外忽傳收薊北
初聞涕淚滿衣裳
卻看妻子愁何在
漫卷詩書喜欲狂
白日放歌須縱酒
青春作伴好還鄉
即從巴峽穿巫峽
便下襄陽向洛陽
News at this far western station! The north has been recaptured!
At first I cannot check the tears from pouring on my coat --
Where is my wife? Where are my sons?
Yet crazily sure of finding them, I pack my books and poems- -
And loud my song and deep my drink
On the green spring-day that starts me home,
Back from this mountain, past another mountain,
Up from the south, north again-to my own town!

杜甫　登高 A LONG CLIMB
風急天高猿嘯哀
渚清沙白鳥飛回
無邊落木蕭蕭下
不盡長江滾滾來
萬里悲秋常作客
百年多病獨登臺
艱難苦恨繁霜鬢
潦倒新停濁酒杯
In a sharp gale from the wide sky apes are whimpering,
Birds are flying homeward over the clear lake and white sand,
Leaves are dropping down like the spray of a waterfall,
While I watch the long river always rolling on.
I have come three thousand miles away. Sad now with autumn
And with my hundred years of woe, I climb this height alone.
Ill fortune has laid a bitter frost on my temples,
Heart-ache and weariness are a thick dust in my wine.

杜甫　登樓 FROM AN UPPER STORY
花近高樓傷客心
萬方多難此登臨
錦江春色來天地
玉壘浮云變古今
北極朝庭終不改
西山寇盜莫相侵
可憐後主還祠廟
日暮聊為梁父吟
Flowers, as high as my window, hurt the heart of a wanderer
For I see, from this high vantage, sadness everywhere.
The Silken River, bright with spring, floats between earth and heaven
Like a line of cloud by the Jade Peak, between ancient days and now.
...Though the State is established for a while as firm as the North Star
And bandits dare not venture from the western hills,
Yet sorry in the twilight for the woes of a longvanished Emperor,
I am singing the song his Premier sang when still unestranged from the mountain.

杜甫　宿府 STAYING AT THE GENERAL'S HEADQUARTERS
清秋幕府井梧寒
獨宿江城蠟炬殘
永夜角聲悲自語
中天月色好誰看
風塵荏苒音書絕
關塞蕭條行陸難
已忍伶俜十年事
強移棲息一枝安
The autumn night is clear and cold in the lakka-trees of this courtyard.
I am lying forlorn in the river-town. I watch my guttering candle.
I hear the lonely notes of a bugle sounding through the dark.
The moon is in mid-heaven, but there's no one to share it with me.
My messengers are scattered by whirls of rain and sand.
City-gates are closed to a traveller; mountains are walls in my way --
Yet, I who have borne ten years of pitiable existence,
Find here a perch, a little branch, and am safe for this one night.

杜甫　閣夜 NIGHT IN THE WATCH-TOWER
歲暮陰陽催短景
天涯霜雪霽寒霄
五更鼓角聲悲壯
三峽星河影動搖
野哭千家聞戰伐
夷歌數處起漁樵
臥龍躍馬終黃土
人事音書漫寂寥
While winter daylight shortens in the elemental scale
And snow and frost whiten the cold-circling night,
Stark sounds the fifth-watch with a challenge of drum and bugle.
...The stars and the River of Heaven pulse over the three mountains;
I hear women in the distance, wailing after the battle;
I see barbarian fishermen and woodcutters in the dawn.
...Sleeping-Dragon, Plunging-Horse, are no generals now, they are dust --
Hush for a moment, O tumult of the world.

杜甫　詠懷古跡五首·之一 POETIC THOUGHTS ON ANCIENT SITES I
支離東北風塵際
漂泊西南天地間
三峽樓臺淹日月
五溪衣服共云山
羯胡事主終無賴
詞客哀時且未還
庾信平生最蕭瑟
暮年詩賦動江關
Forlorn in the northeast among wind and dust,
Drifting in the southwest between heaven and earth,
Lingering for days and months in towers and terraces at the Three Gorges,
Sharing clouds and mountains with the costumes of the Five Streams.
The barbarian serving the ruler in the end was unreliable.
The wandering poet lamenting the times had no chance to return.
Yu Xin throughout his life was most miserable,
In his waning years his poetry stirred the land of rivers and passes.

杜甫　詠懷古跡五首·之二 POETIC THOUGHTS ON ANCIENT SITES II
搖落深知宋玉悲
風流儒雅亦吾師
悵望千秋一灑淚
蕭條異代不同時
江山故宅空文藻
云雨荒臺豈夢思
最是楚宮俱泯滅
舟人指點到今疑
"Decay and decline": deep knowledge have I of Sung Yu's grief.
Romantic and refined, he too is my teacher.
Sadly looking across a thousand autumns, one shower of tears,
Melancholy in different epochs, not at the same time.
Among rivers and mountains his old abode -- empty his writings;
Deserted terrace of cloud and rain -- surely not just imagined in a dream?
Utterly the palaces of Chu are all destroyed and ruined,
The fishermen pointing them out today are unsure.

杜甫　詠懷古跡五首·之三 THOUGHTS OF OLD TIME III
群山萬壑赴荊門
生長明妃尚有村
一去紫臺連朔漠
獨留青冢向黃昏
畫圖省識春風面
環佩空歸月下魂
千載琵琶作胡語
分明怨恨曲中論
Ten thousand ranges and valleys approach the Jing Gate
And the village in which the Lady of Light was born and bred.
She went out from the purple palace into the desertland;
She has now become a green grave in the yellow dusk.
Her face ! Can you picture a wind of the spring?
Her spirit by moonlight returns with a tinkling
Song of the Tartars on her jade guitar,
Telling her eternal sorrow.

杜甫　詠懷古跡五首·之四 POETIC THOUGHTS ON ANCIENT SITES IV
蜀主征吳幸三峽
崩年亦在永安宮
翠華想像空山里
玉殿虛無野寺中
古廟杉松巢水鶴
歲時伏臘走村翁
武侯祠屋常鄰近
一體君臣祭祀同
The ruler of Shu had his eyes on Wu and progressed as far as the Three Gorges.
In the year of his demise, too, he was in the Palace of Eternal Peace.
The blue-green banners can be imagined on the empty mountain,
The jade palace is a void in the deserted temple.
In the pines of the ancient shrine aquatic cranes nest;
At summer and winter festivals the comers are village elders.
The Martial Marquis's memorial shrine is ever nearby;
In union, sovereign and minister share the sacrifices together.

杜甫　詠懷古跡五首·之五 THOUGHTS OF OLD TIME V
諸葛大名垂宇宙
宗臣遺像肅清高
三分割據紆籌策
萬古云霄一羽毛
伯仲之間見伊呂
指揮若定失蕭曹
運移漢祚終難復
志決身殲軍務勞
Zhuge's prestige transcends the earth;
There is only reverence for his face;
Yet his will, among the Three Kingdoms at war,
Was only as one feather against a flaming sky.
He was brother of men like Yi and Lu
And in time would have surpassed the greatest of all statesmen.
Though he knew there was no hope for the House of Han,
Yet he wielded his mind for it, yielded his life.

劉長卿　江州重別薛六柳八二員外 ON LEAVING GUIJIANG AGAIN TO XUE AND LIU
生涯豈料承優詔
世事空知學醉歌
江上月明胡雁過
淮南木落楚山多
寄身且喜滄洲近
顧影無如白發何
今日龍鐘人共老
愧君猶遣慎風波
Dare I, at my age, accept my summons,
Knowing of the world's ways only wine and song?....
Over the moon-edged river come wildgeese from the Tartars;
And the thinner the leaves along the Huai, the wider the southern mountains....
I ought to be glad to take my old bones back to the capital,
But what am I good for in that world, with my few white hairs?....
As bent and decrepit as you are, I am ashamed to thank you,
When you caution me that I may encounter thunderbolts.

劉長卿　長沙過賈誼宅 ON PASSING JIA YI'S HOUSE IN CHANGSHA
三年謫宦此棲遲
萬古惟留楚客悲
秋草獨尋人去後
寒林空見日斜時
漢文有道恩猶薄
湘水無情吊豈知
寂寂江山搖落處
憐君何事到天涯
Here, where you spent your three years' exile,
To be mourned in Chu ten thousand years,
Can I trace your footprint in the autumn grass --
Or only slanting sunlight through the bleak woods?
If even good Emperor Wen was cold-hearted,
Could you hope that the dull river Xiang would understand you,
These desolate waters, these taciturn mountains,
When you came, like me, so far away?

劉長卿　自夏口至鸚洲夕望岳陽寄源中丞 AN EVENING VIEW OF THE CITY OF YOUZHOU AFTER
COMING FROM HANKOU TO PARROT ISLAND A POEM SENT
TO MY FRIEND GOVERNOR YUAN
汀洲無浪復無煙
楚客相思益渺然
漢口夕陽斜渡鳥
洞庭秋水遠連天
孤城背嶺寒吹角
獨戍臨江夜泊船
賈誼上書憂漢室
長沙謫去古今憐
No ripples in the river, no mist on the islands,
Yet the landscape is blurred toward my friend in Chu....
Birds in the slanting sun cross Hankou,
And the autumn sky mingles with Lake Dongting.
...From a bleak mountain wall the cold tone of a bugle
Reminds me, moored by a ruined fort,
That Jia Yi's loyal plea to the House of Han
Banned him to Changsha, to be an exile.

錢起　贈闕下裴舍人 TO MY FRIEND AT THE CAPITAL SECRETARY PEI
二月黃鸝飛上林
春城紫禁曉陰陰
長樂鐘聲花外盡
龍池柳色雨中深
陽和不散窮途恨
霄漢長懷捧日心
獻賦十年猶未遇
羞將白發對華簪
Finches flash yellow through the Imperial Grove
Of the Forbidden City, pale with spring dawn;
Flowers muffle a bell in the Palace of Bliss
And rain has deepened the Dragon Lake willows;
But spring is no help to a man bewildered,
Who would be like a cloud upholding the Light of Heaven,
Yet whose poems, ten years refused, are shaming
These white hairs held by the petalled pin.

韋應物　寄李儋元錫 TO MY FRIENDS LI DAN AND YUANXI
去年花里逢君別
今日花開又一年
世事茫茫難自料
春愁黯黯獨成眠
身多疾病思田里
邑有流亡愧俸錢
聞道欲來相問訊
西樓望月幾回圓
We met last among flowers, among flowers we parted,
And here, a year later, there are flowers again;
But, with ways of the world too strange to foretell,
Spring only brings me grief and fatigue.
I am sick, and I think of my home in the country-
Ashamed to take pay while so many are idle.
...In my western tower, because of your promise,
I have watched the full moons come and go.

皇甫冉　春思 SPRING THOUGHTS
鶯啼燕語報新年
馬邑龍堆路幾千
家住層城鄰漢苑
心隨明月到胡天
機中錦字論長恨
樓上花枝笑獨眠
為問天戎竇車騎
何時返旆勒燕然
Finch-notes and swallow-notes tell the new year....
But so far are the Town of the Horse and the Dragon Mound
From this our house, from these walls and Han Gardens,
That the moon takes my heart to the Tartar sky.
I have woven in the frame endless words of my grieving....
Yet this petal-bough is smiling now on my lonely sleep.
Oh, ask General Dou when his flags will come home
And his triumph be carved on the rock of Yanran mountain!

盧綸　晚次鄂州 A NIGHT-MOORING AT WUCHANG
云開遠見漢陽城
猶是孤帆一日程
估客晝眠知浪靜
舟人夜語覺潮生
三湘愁鬢逢秋色
萬里歸心對月明
舊業已隨征戰盡
更堪江上鼓鼙聲
Far off in the clouds stand the walls of Hanyang,
Another day's journey for my lone sail....
Though a river-merchant ought to sleep in this calm weather,
I listen to the tide at night and voices of the boatmen.
...My thin hair grows wintry, like the triple Xiang streams,
Three thousand miles my heart goes, homesick with the moon;
But the war has left me nothing of my heritage --
And oh, the pang of hearing these drums along the river!

柳宗元　登柳州城樓寄漳汀封連四州刺史 FROM THE CITY-TOWER OF LIUZHOU
TO MY FOUR FELLOW-OFFICIALS AT ZHANG,
DING, FENG, AND LIAN DISTRICTS
城上高樓接大荒
海天愁思正茫茫
驚風亂 [風占] 芙蓉水
密雨斜侵薜荔墻
嶺樹重遮千里目
江流曲似九回腸
共來百越文身地
猶自音書滯一鄉
At this lofty tower where the town ends, wilderness begins;
And our longing has as far to go as the ocean or the sky....
Hibiscus-flowers by the moat heave in a sudden wind,
And vines along the wall are whipped with slanting rain.
Nothing to see for three hundred miles but a blur of woods and mountain --
And the river's nine loops, twisting in our bowels....
This is where they have sent us, this land of tattooed people --
And not even letters, to keep us in touch with home.

劉禹錫　西塞山懷古 THOUGHTS OF OLD TIME AT WEST FORT MOUNTAIN
王浚樓船下益州
金陵王氣黯然收
千尋鐵鎖沈江底
一片降幡出石頭
人世幾回傷往事
山形依舊枕寒流
從今四海為家日
故壘蕭蕭蘆荻秋
Since Wang Jun brought his towering ships down from Yizhou,
The royal ghost has pined in the city of Nanjing.
Ten thousand feet of iron chain were sunk here to the bottom --
And then came the flag of surrender on the Wall of Stone....
Cycles of change have moved into the past,
While still this mountain dignity has commanded the cold river;
And now comes the day of the Chinese world united,
And the old forts fill with ruin and with autumn reeds.